We have made the journey and are now home again. We left at about ten fifteen this morning, and were doing really well, we were in Levin by four, but then we hit a huge traffic jam in the middle of nowhere at Manakau, and crawled at five km/h for absolutely ages. Then at Otaki, it all disappeared again! Not a single reason for it apart from the slowing to 50 km/h for the township... we got home by six. We left Tauranga in pouring rain, and arrived home in pouring rain, but there was some fine weather in between. People on the roads were pretty sensible today.

I was tired though and desperately worried I'd fall asleep, something I've never done driving but a thing I fear. My father fell asleep at the wheel regularly, and trips with him were always a nightmare but he never let my mother drive. I had no backup on this trip, as none of my children drive yet! And I slept really badly last night, worrying about things I needed to do back here. But now I'm home, we're safe and sound and tomorrow I shall do as much as I can to alleviate my inner panic stations!

The whole trip away feels like a blur - where did those days go? And what did we achieve? I didn't even send postcards which feels awful because Moth and Viv always do, and even Phil joined in on the last one, thank you, you cool dudes. I shall have to send postcards from here. I'm just glad to be back. Visiting my mother sucks all the life out of me. I am like an empty vessel. Now that I'm home again, I can start to relate to people properly once more.

I got an email from the archbishop and it was very nice but I'm so glad I wasn't here when he said Mass for our parish today, a special welcoming Mass for the Codfish. The Bish is not going to be helpful with our Codfish problems, so our parish is just going to have to work things out for ourselves. I'm sure we will somehow...

The Hurricanes (our Super 14 rugby team) won with a bonus point. My mother doesn't get the sport channels, so my brother (who was staying as well, with his wife and daughter) was kicking me off the Net last night so he could check the Super 14 scores as the evening progressed. We didn't see any games of anything in the end apart from delayed coverage of the Crusaders beating the Blues with my sister in law shouting desperate words of encouragement to her home team (the Blues) to no avail!! My mother doesn't get movie channels either, so we watched Wife Swap, Trading Spouses and Flight of the Conchords. Oh and Rove, of course. He was interviewing KD Lang and at the end of his twenty seconds for twenty dollars he always asks, 'And who would you turn gay for?' so we were dying to see what he'd do, and sure enough, 'Who would you turn straight for?' She chose Rove *g*

So now I am back with emails to answer about First Reconciliation, stuff to organise for Mission Day at school, lessons to prepare, a liturgy committee thing to sort out, music to plan for Mass, so much to do (oh and a whole house to clean) and somewhere along the way, I shall try to steal some writing time *g* Steve is away from Wednesday so I might take a whole day to do something... famous last words, huh. It'll be good to catch up with you guys, too, now that I have broadband that moves faster than the snail's pace, and I swear, it's SLOOOOOOOOOOW, like, make a cup of coffee while that page loads up, at my mother's house. And I have drunk WAY too much coffee this week. Every time I wanted to avoid a conversation (or confrontation), I'd make another coffee. Shall have to try to do that less...

-Just take it one step at a time, and before you know it, you'll be all done!I went into school, caught up on some phone calls, but wouldn't you know it, no one I wanted was in! I left messages, so that's a start. Thanks.

-Ah, I remember the pain of dial up internet. Now I'm spoiled with cable internet, it's nice!My mother actually has broadband, but I think it's her computer. OMG it is so slow and cumbersome. It didn't help that her 'waif' had installed Limewire. That always buggers up the system.

Ooh, cool flower icon. I remember that one from your garden, don't I? I took a couple of good pics of my mother's flowers, I'll have to dig them out tomorrow. -Glad you got the German postcard - and glad you're safe home!You are so good with postcards! You and Viv are so thoughtful. And thanks, it's so good to be home, it is unbelievable.

-I'm not really good at postcards - ask my other friends! But yours seem to have become a good habit!The postcards are the only things that stop me from dying with jealousy every time you two meet up!!

I am trying to relax!! - I've been busy most of the day painting, cleaning, clearing and weeding. It feels good, getting on top of a few things and clearing out the boys' drawers at the same time which produced a big bag for charity! Tonight I shall write *g*